MRIs Reveal Highly Distinct Branches Of Anxiety

Anxiety is a word used to describe feelings associated with both worry and fear. However, a new study by University of Illinois psychologists provides evidence for that these are actually two types of anxiety so different they take place in opposite hemispheres of the brain.

Testing 42 undergraduates who experienced either "high anxious apprehension" (worrying behaviors) or "high anxious arousal" (panic or fear), they found that the apprehension group experienced heightened activity in the left side of the brain in a region associated with speech production, while the arousal group experienced increased activity in the right side of the brain in areas tied to responding to danger. Researchers were also able to differentiate the region of the left brain linked to apprehensive anxiety from a nearby structure associated with emotional processing.

ABSTRACT: Specificity of regional brain activity in anxiety types during emotion processing